Iris Kempe

Iris Kempe is a political scientist and policy adviser currently working with the Global Challenge Foundation. She has published widely on European affairs, foreign and security policy, the EU’s Eastern Policy, and is a frequent commentator in the international media.

Dr. Kempe started her career in the think tank world at the Centre for Applied Policy Research at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich (1995-2008), where she focused on the EU’s Eastern policy and the development/transformation of the EU’s Eastern neighbors. She then worked as director (2008-2011) of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation in the South Caucasus. Two weeks after her arrival in Tbilisi, the Russia-Georgia War broke out. Her tenure in the South Caucasus thus focused on European and transatlantic cooperation, regional conflicts, and transformation.

In 2011-2012 Dr. Kempe relocated to Moscow as director of a British NGO in the Russian Federation. The squeeze on civil society shortened her time in Moscow, and she transferred to Stockholm as a senior adviser to the Council of Baltic Sea States. The Council is an intergovernmental organization with 11 members from the region and 10 observers including the United States. Since late 2017, Dr. Kempe has been advising the Global Challenge Foundation on the feasibility of projects with the potential for global transformation.

Germany’s historical background, its many linkages with Central and Eastern Europe, and its geographic proximity make it Europe’s most important actor in Eastern Policy. This prominence also makes Germany vital for a solid transatlantic framework to support both the Obama administration’s efforts to redesign relations with Russia and overall Euro-American engagement in the EU’s neighborhood. The Bundestag elections in September will bring changes mostly at the margins of German foreign policy, as key aspects are examples of cross-party consensus…